Endangered turtle nests found

BROWNSVILLE (AP) - Their recovery is almost as slow as the movements of their landlocked brethren.

But conservation projects seem to be working for the world's rarest sea turtle - the Kemp ridley.

More than 5,000 nesting sites have appeared at Rancho Nuevo, near Tampico, Mexico, this year. Some 50 years ago an estimated 40,000 nesting females were at Rancho Nuevo, but by the 1970s, that number had dwindled to less than a thousand. The beach is now protected.

Five Kemp's ridley nests also have been found on South Padre Island and another on Boca Chica Beach. The nests in South Padre Island were found during May and June and contained about 100 eggs each.

"We're very encouraged to see these nests on South Padre Island," said Donna Shaver, station leader for the U.S. Geological Survey, Padre Island Field Station, and Texas coordinator for the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network.

Although conservationists are hopeful, it is too soon to tell if the endangered turtle is in the clear.

"When will we say its a success?" Shaver said. "Were still evaluating the data.

"The eggs we find now are future nesters in 10 to 15 years."

Said Jody Mays, field coordinator for the South Padre Island Sea Turtle Project: "It might take 20 years before you know if it (the sea turtle project) had made a difference."

The Kemp ridley, which lives almost exclusively in the Gulf of Mexico and can reach about 2 feet long and weigh 80 pounds, was teetering on extinction until it was listed as endangered in 1978.

The eggs found in Texas are collected and driven to the Sea Turtle Project headquarters on North Padre Island where they are placed in a controlled incubation facility.

There, the eggs are kept in a temperature between 86 and 90 degrees until they hatch.

The turtles, only a couple of inches long, are released on the beach where they scurry into the Gulf of Mexico. At that point, they are on their own, to escape predators like birds, fish and humans.

"About one in a 100 may survive into adulthood," said Shaver. "We hope by finding those eggs, we can raise those odds to five out of 100."